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The big question is:" What would we see if the ability to symbolize were not operative? If we didn't attach significance to occurrences in our environment via labels, meaning, conditioned responses, and associations, how would they appear to us? If we discard our opinions, notions, and associations regarding things seen, what then do we see? The same thing? A seamless whole? Nothing? This can be a very difficult question to answer, and yet it is essential that anyone on a spiritual path be able to eventually do just that, to see and experience without symbolizing, conceptualizing, and compartmentalizing their world."

Any thoughts?

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

"That which we experience when we turn off our automatic ability to symbolize is really not conceivable in verbal consciousness. That's why mystics end up rambling, why Quantum physicists end up spouting poetry, and why Hermeticists come up with bizarre occult systems which are of little use to anyone but themselves. But still, this being a Hermetic paper, we will here use the word "Chaos" for the time being in order to label what cannot be labeled (As the Hermeticist does, we will using verbal "training wheels" until we do not need them anymore).

When one is able to set aside the natural human ability to symbolize, one experiences reality face to face, and it's appearance is chaos. It is devoid of categories, labels, and verbal boxes. It has no barrier and no structure--at least not in any way that we are able to comprehend--and therefore, for our purposes here, we call it Chaos."

By the way these are not my ideas, but Hermetic.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

not-operative?maybe less operative would lead to something meaningfulnot operative might be too much of a goal

we would probably see lots more of the in between stuff that we would skip due to processing.

i.e.more visual fragments(a bit more like a rock video)more mental fragments(natural association without extra reactions)clearer audio unfiltered.(a bit less linguistic responding and a bit less discursive thought)we might even notice that we like natural beauty even more than filtered nature (while we otherwise attempt to live in the ideal)

nice post!this is the revolution of the mind that must take place in everyone and that we need so much, this is a crucial step in the evolution of consciousness.

indeed, breaking down the filter that separates the ego from reality, which we use to conceptualize, symbolize, attach meanings, etc.., will make us come face to face with reality, nothing will stand between our perception of reality and reality itself, duality will fall apart, and the self and the exterior environment will fusion into one.

We will still see the same reality, but in a new way, like if we entered a new dimension.

i could ramble on about this, but then nobody would read my post. Iceland, if you would like to understand this concept in greater detail, i suggest you check out Jiddu Krishnamurti. Practically all of his philosophy revolves around this, he is the master of the psychological revolution IMO.

Quote:uriahchase said:it is essential that anyone on a spiritual path be able to eventually do just that, to see and experience without symbolizing, conceptualizing, and compartmentalizing their world."

are you kidding?

Direct perception of reality. It isn't a joke.

Does the act of knowing necessitate thinking through a concept, associating an abstraction with another abstraction?

Direct percpetion and knowing of reality.

Peace.

--------------------If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

When one is able to set aside the natural human ability to symbolize, one experiences reality face to face, and it's appearance is chaos. It is devoid of categories, labels, and verbal boxes. It has no barrier and no structure--at least not in any way that we are able to comprehend--and therefore, for our purposes here, we call it Chaos.

Why would the Hermeticist, so well known for his use of labels, be fond of setting them aside? One answer is that when one actually does this, he gains the realization that his symbolizing ability is extremely powerful. It only is required that he use it consciously. For most people this ability is unrecognised and seemingly independent of the personality. It creates a threatening reality for them. Like the fundamentalist who sees sexual images in Disney cartoons, they may end up blaming others for things that they themselves are responsible for perceiving. Statements like, "You make me feel. . . ," are typical of people who do not claim their own perception of others as an ability that is under their own control.

The Hermeticist works with this ability consciously and therefore discovers that his own happiness is largely under his influence. Using a reference with the knowledge that it isn't real, makes for great power, because he can move without fear of loss. Since nothing in the mind is real, then nothing that he perceives can be lost. Since there is nothing to loose, he can create anything he needs (since it doesn't exist anyway). One discovers that all around is a sea of chaos and pure potentiality, waiting for him to organize and shape it via symbolism and mental frameworks into a reality that expresses ones innate happiness.

This is a key point. The magician stops believing in the world he creates. He no longer takes so seriously the thoughts that ramble through his mind. The thoughts are the creators of his reality, but they are not the reality itself. One of the most effective ways to be miserable is for him to believe them. One of the most effective ways to be miserable is to believe the words that come out of his own mouth or out of the mouths of others. So he simply stops.

Verbal consciousness, one of the mediums of symbolism, is very often mistaken for the reality to which it refers. It is only a mirror and therefore a tool. In other words, the map is not the territory. It can take much, much work on a spiritual path to finally turn this indicative axiom into a true realization. Once we realize through and through that the map of reality in our heads is not the reality to which it refers, we are more free to change that map and use it more effectively. We work from the inside out instead of from the outside in. Rather than waiting for our physical world to change our reality map for us, we change our reality map at will. Why wait for permission? Just do it.

This point is so obvious that it is almost ludicrous to mention it, but still, time and time again, we find ourselves miserable because we habitually mistake our personal versions of the universe for the universe itself. Imagine the frustration inherent in such a scheme. But then again we don't have to imagine it--we know what it is like.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

I know that what I see on Salvia is exactly this. Complete breakdown of visual interpretation and symbolic visual cues. My room turned into the head of a huge building-sized dinosaur made of brick. It was fucked.

So why do we do it? The best answer we can give here is that it is a natural ability to create imaginative frameworks in our minds that represent reality. It is an ability that is almost always up and running because the five senses, its chief assets, are constantly at work. Out of habit we continuously allow our senses to create miniturized versions of reality in our own minds. It is virtually unavoidable to stop this from happening, and there is no reason to loathe it or to utterly stop it.

This automatic symbolizing and perceiving is the chief instrument we use to cause suffering for ourselves, but that doesn't mean that it inherently causes suffering. In reality it is the unconscious misuse of the ability that causes suffering, nothing more. The task of the spiritual aspirant is to see through the phantasm of his own reality-map, to catch himself in the act of creating it, and to consciously take control of the ability to do so. With training, he changes from a man whose map is created by external conditions into a man whose reality map is changed by his own will. When that will is free of conditioning, when the map in his head no longer controlled by physical cercumstance, but it is controlled by the inner Will, He is empowered to create his own beliefs, symbols, and maps--and correspondingly to create his own reality!

I have mentioned above that the ability to symbolize is almost always active. So if it is, then what are we doing with it now, right at this moment? Look at people around you. Look at the local government, the news, TV commercials, and coworkers. Look at yourself. Do you like what we are collectively creating? Do the people around you enjoy the world in which they are participating? Another question: If our own faculties are constantly at work in our lives creating an overall unhappy scheme, who is in control of those faculties? Who is running the show? It is like a runaway phenomena, the reigns of which are dangling. It is a power unharnessed, undirected by the one who is gifted with it. We are left at the whim of undirected forces whirling in the ebb and flow of nature.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

i thought he was talking about association and filtering of experience in general (my interpretation).

i agree that 'symbolic' implies aa abstracted understanding of the brain.

mama ape talks to baby ape in sign language. not because she has an innate need to teach language. but because language is a kind of interacting for her; and she is intentionally interacting and unintentionally teaching her baby to interact linguistically, by giving it opportunities to explore emotional interaction.

soon as the baby's brain develops, it interacts linguistically.

(what does it mean that apes can learn language? that we developed the capacity for language long before we spoke. and subject-predicate structure is innate to language itself, not a particular of the brain.)

IMO.

--------------------"consensus on the nature of equilibrium is usually established by periodic conflict." -henry kissinger

Red I did not write this as you may well know. So I don't mean anything here. I am working on this myself and just getting feedback so I can work with this myself.

Actually I find your posts often hard to understand. Maybe because you use few sentences for complex ideas, and I don't have an extensive vocabulary. If you were to rephrase the question for a 12 year old I will take a stab at answering you.

I often think of the dreaming mind having the ability to symbolize, and then communicate to the conscious mind with those symbols. If we are dreaming the world out of chaos then everything we create would be a symbol and have meaning depending on how we interpet it. Kind of like tea leaves. Does this relate in any way to what you are asking? Sorry, but I feel dumb here.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

i don't think of the mind as separated into conscious and sub conscious with a communication channel.

I think of it as a space where the oldest memories are wrapped around the most recent memories and they are organized by commonality; they are used to test the resonance of what is happenning, to find meaning and simmilarities; to help steer us through our lives.

when a few things have something in common that thing can be called the symbol for the set of things that share it.

often the common thing is subtle or abstract, but sometimes it is obvious like a platonic ideal form: like the idea of a chair, or of beauty.

====

the closest parallel to subconsious in my view is the set of all memories that are older than 5 minutes - and the conscious would be the last 3 seconds, and the flux between 3 seconds ago and 5 minutes ago is the short term memory context (the mind set).

so if you cut off association which is the use of symbols and simillarities, you lose the whole history of the individual, and you may still have mindset (short term memory) and the last 3 seconds (the conscious), but it is unanchored, drifting without associations that have deeper resonance (the subconscious).

anyway I think all three parts of mind are very tightly linked though they can be medically decoupled.

With the advent of science, and the scientific method, the world was introduced full-force to the essence of Hermeticism. The scientific method involves formulating explanations of how things happen--mirrors of reality--testing them thoroughly, and then adjusting or discarding them based on the evidence. In other words, it acknowledges that we all have versions of reality up and running in our minds, but it mandates that we test and adjust them to be more accurate and to get them to yield desirable results. Imagine turning this amazing discipline toward the goal of happiness and spiritual attainment. That is the Hermetic path.

It is not surprising that our world today barely at all uses the scientific method for spiritual pursuits. It is usually instead geared toward just the physical life, toward creating utopia exclusively on Earth. This world is full of luxury and conveniences that modern technology have provided. We try to enjoy these fruits of science, but there is always something nagging us from within. The real issues are continuously unaddressed. The resulting uneasiness is the result of trying to escape from problems by avoiding them or suppressing them--by fixing the outsides of things rather than dealing with the behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and complexes that create them. Just look at Western medicine. It speaks almost completely in terms of the suppression of symptoms, discomfort and suffering. Anti-depressants, anti-histamines, anti-inflammatory, anti-etc..

The downfall of science as it is currently practiced is that it almost never uses its discipline to delve deeply into how ailments emerge. It tends to ignore how we create our reality with our beliefs and corresponding behaviors. What good does it do you to combat physical suffering if, at the same time, you are still creating it? Worse yet, the very things that need science applied to them--beliefs, complexes, and behaviors--are the very things that are in charge of scientific pursuits. Not surprisingly, the world is filled with high tech weapons and drugs that numb us to reality. What we do with modern science pales in significance to what the original inventors of the scientific method intended for it. We put it in the service of desires and needs which do not produce a desirable reality. In other words, the world we are creating today with science is largely created by our own demons. When you do not take ownership of your ability to create your own version of reality, that ability falls into that hands of psychological complexes. Fear and desire are still the strongest motives for research and progress.

As individuals, it is up to each one of us to break this chain. Before we use our Hermetic abilities to create a "comfortable" life for ourselves here on the physical, we must first use it to weed out those things in our own personal programming that are blindly causing us suffering. If we cannot do this, then the awesome power of science falls into the hands of our blind, infantile subconscious complexes.

The first step then is to find a system of symbols which encompasses and explains our demons and how they arise. That way, they can be dealt with. There are many such schemes of the cosmos. (Q: Leary's 8-circuit model of consciousness). The Golden Dawn, for instance, uses the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life as a map of the interior make-up of man. The Glyph of the Tree charts the recesses of his body, mind, and spirit supposedly all the way to the source of existence. Placing symbols on this diagram he can personally identify how his mind works by how the symbols relate to each other. He discovers painfully how he creates suffering for himself. He applies symbols and various symbolic techniques, such as in ritual, to restructure his interior and exterior make-up. Gradually, with the assistance of a teacher, he undoes the automatic complexes that hold prisoner his creativity.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC